Ethical hacking is a part of cybersecurity that protects your organizations’ online presence from different malicious threats like hacking, phishing, etc.
Ethical hacking does help organizations identify their security loopholes perfectly. Ethical hackers or legal hackers perform the task of hacking for all the right reasons. They have to figure out the causes behind the potential hacking attempt and report them to the employers accordingly.
Surprisingly, ethical hacking comes under the umbrella of cybersecurity. However, there are key differences between these two aspects companies or employers need to be aware of.
This post will describe the difference between ethical hacking and cybersecurity. Furthermore, it will explain how employers can benefit from ethical hacking to improve their existing cybersecurity practices next level.
What is the difference between ethical hacking and cybersecurity?
Ethical hacking is an approach that allows professionals to highlight the security vulnerabilities residing in any organization’s network and other resources.
Like cybercriminals, ethical hackers deploy the same techniques but in this case, the scope is totally different. They want to identify weaknesses that can harm the online security and privacy of an organization a great deal.
Apart from this, they do not indulge themselves in any malicious activity unlike hackers and other cyber goons. Their roles come in handy when companies are in the phase of creating new products or implementing new systems within their premises.
In this situation, companies hire them to test their products or systems security-wise to provide them unbiased feedback about their products or systems in detail.
On the contrary, cybersecurity is mainly performed and supervised by a group of cybersecurity professionals or experts within a company. Compared to ethical hackers, cybersecurity personnel are responsible for protecting organizations’ networks or systems against notorious activities.
In addition to this, they need to implement cybersecurity practices to safeguard networks, systems, data, and programs from unauthorized access, theft, damage, and other security issues.
What tools ethical hackers use to perform their jobs?
Ethical hackers depend on different tools to perform their jobs successfully. These tools include VPN, GFI LanGuard, Aircrack, Angry IP scanner, etc.
VPN
Ethical hackers use VPNs when they want to perform a full spectrum attack simulation. As far as full-spectrum attack simulation is concerned, it involves various types of cyberattacks that are designed to examine the cybersecurity of an organization.
But before starting the full spectrum attack simulation even the good guys need to protect their online privacy and should look for reliable VPN services. The said feature helps them examine its different privacy and security features in detail. To hunt for reliable VPN software one can begin with those offering free trial.
This is because all such crucial features play their role when they want to perform simulated attacks securely from anywhere after masking their original IP address.
Once they mask their actual IP address, they can deceive their company’s ISP (Internet Service Provider) easily. As a result, their ISP will not be able to flag the internet traffic as malicious one and disable or block their internet connection temporarily depending on the situation.
GFI LanGuard
GFI LanGuard is one of the most useful ethical hacking tools out there. When legal hackers use it, they can explore security vulnerabilities residing in corporate networks or systems proactively.
Aircrack
Aircrack is another ethical hacking tool famous among legal hackers for various reasons. This tool supports all operating systems like Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.
The best thing about Aircrack is that it allows ethical hackers to crack unsafe or unprotected wireless connections without any difficulty.
Angry IP Scanner
As the name suggests, the Angry IP scanner allows ethical hackers to scan IP addresses and ports comprehensively. Compared to other ethical hacking tools, it is an open-source tool that you can use on different devices such as Windows, Mac, and Linux free of cost.
Advantages of having ethical hackers in your organization
These days, ethical hacking has become an important element of cybersecurity because it gives employers peace of mind security-wise. When you include ethical hackers in your cybersecurity teams, they can help you develop and apply effective cybersecurity policies throughout your organization properly.
Consequently, the security of organizations’ information systems can be improved significantly.
Here is the list that includes some of the most significant contributions they make when working in an organization:
- They explore vulnerabilities within a company from a hacker or scammer point of view thoroughly. This way, weak points are recognized and addressed correctly.
- They allow employers in implementing a secure network company or organization-wide. By doing so, businesses or companies can keep themselves secure from security breaches comprehensively.
- They do not permit hackers and other cybercriminals to steal sensitive company data and misuse it to accomplish their illicit objectives.
- Ethical hackers help companies in gaining their customers’ trust. They can ensure their customers and other stakeholders that their data is in safe hands.
The Takeaway
Ethical hacking is one of the most fruitful approaches that help companies or organizations enhance their cybersecurity considerably. As we live in the COVID-19 era, the importance of ethical hackers has grown to another level.
Organizations can hire them as their full-time employees to combat numerous cyber risks like hacking, malware, phishing attempts, etc., appropriately.
Their analysis enables businesses or organizations to improve their cybersecurity in the right direction. As a result, they can safeguard their networks, systems, and other crucial assets from the prying eyes of cyber criminals without any hassle.
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